“Witnessing another successful launch of an Atlas V serves as a reminder of how much Orbital ATK values our partnerships with ULA and NASA,” said Steve Earl, Vice President and General Manager of Orbital ATK’s Aerospace Structures Division. “Our highly engineered composite and control products play an important role in ensuring dependable access to space, affordable innovation for our customers and overall mission success.”

Using advanced fiber placement manufacturing and automated inspection techniques, Orbital ATK produced three components for the ULA Atlas V vehicle, including the 10-foot diameter composite heat shield that provides essential protection to the first stage engine, the Centaur Interstage Adapter that houses the second stage engine, and the boattail that adapts from the core vehicle to the five-meter diameter fairing. Orbital ATK fabricated these structures at its Iuka, Mississippi, facility. This is the 66th Atlas V launch using Orbital ATK-built composite structures.

This flight also marked the 32st successful flight of the Orbital ATK retrorocket motors. Eight of these solid motors supported separation of the spent first stage. The Atlas V retrorocket is built by Orbital ATK’s Defense Systems Group at its facility in Elkton, Maryland. In addition, Orbital ATK manufactured the Reaction Control System propellant tank for the ULA Atlas V at its Commerce, California, facility.

NASA’s GOES-R is the next generation of geostationary weather satellites, and the first of four in the planned constellation. The GOES-R series satellites will contribute to more accurate and reliable weather forecasts and severe weather outlooks via continuous visual and infrared imagery and atmospheric measurements of Earth’s Western Hemisphere, total lightning data, solar imaging and space weather monitoring. NOAA manages the GOES-R program with an integrated NOAA-NASA program office organization co-located at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.